During my old group's World of Darkness phase, we started with a simple Vampire: The Masquerade chronicle. It was our first foray into a non-high fantasy world, and our vampire group was composed of a retired Vietnam War Gangrel veteran, a mysanthrope Gangrel drifter, a young-appearing Toreador martial artist, a Malkavian musician, and my character. I actually started the chronicle with a Caitiff, who was, however, quickly diablerized by the Tremere vampire he had fallen in love with. Subsequently I asked the Storyteller whether I could play a Salubri, since I liked the concept, and he accepted. I dug out my Salubri sourcebook for Vampire: The Dark Ages and came up with the character of Christopher Barnett.

Before I continue, I should mention that Vampire: Redemption (the video game) had not yet been released, and I didn't even know what it was about, only that it was a WoD game.

Well, Christopher Barnett bore an eerie resemblance to Christof Romuald from that game. Christopher was a knight from York, the younger son of a baron who had been poisoned by his own elder son. Christopher had learned of his brother's involvement in their father's death and had challenged the brother to a duel; he had won, and he had exiled his brother, unable to kill him. Afterwards, finding Baronhood a terrible burden, he decided to fight in the Crusade and went East, where he fought valiantly and slew many heathens blithely, believing he was doing the will of God. One day, a battle between his company and a group of Turks spilled into a village, where the knights proceeded to pillage, rape and slaughter elders, women and children. Christopher saw a young girl-child about to be slain, and in an epiphany he realized the horror of what he had wrought. ventually he felt very guilty about what he had done, and he prayed to God for guidance, receiving the visit of his Salubri sire, an Arab woman who invited him to become a Salubri and make amends for his crimes. He accepted and wandered with her for a while, receiving from her a mystical blade she had been given by her sire, and learning the Salubri warrior traditions with another Salubri. The three then fled when the pogrom against their clan began, and eventually his sire was slain and Chris, left alone, decided to hide and enter torpor. He awakened ten years before the beginning of the chronicle, learned about the world, established a mortal identity and continued his quest to make amends while hiding from the Tremere.

He was most famous for carrying his mystical sword in a long and slender suitcase, and for challenging an ex-Archon to a duel after "disagreements" on how to handle a certain situation. He was equally famous for being VERY long-winded when it came to discussing the uses of power. However, he was also very honorable and this was more of a flaw than a merit, since he was regularly tricked by the Storyteller's underhanded NPCs.

The chronicle ended with a whimper, as the Storyteller simply quit it because he didn't think it was the way the game was meant to be played; Christopher is still "alive" and kicking as far as I'm concerned, and he also became the protagonist of a long story based on his bsckground which I wrote years ago... Go to Comment

One other possibility, although perhaps more long-term in its effects, is that the amulet has a strongly chaotic bent, and is semi-sentient. It "listens" to any wish made around it (basically anything beginning with the words "I wish...") and already comes with a number of "stored" wishes. Then, whenever someone wishes for something nearby, the amulet "stores" that wish and in exchange it fulfills one of the wishes it already had stored. So for instance if the amulet stored "I wish I had a million gold pieces", "I wish I could sing like a nightingale" and "I wish I knew what is going on", and it comes into the possession of a character who at some point expresses a wish such as "I wish I could fly", the amulet would fulfill one of the three previous wishes instead, "delete" it from its memory and replace it with the wish to fly. This would make it even more complicated to figure out what is going on, because there would be no clear link between the wish a character just made and the weird event that follows... although it would require the GM to keep track of wishes spoken around the amulet, and possibly to create a few that come with the amulet when it is first found. Go to Comment

My first character was born in 1991, at the tender age of 11... A Red Box Basic D&D fighter named Rymon. He even had a picture, drawn by me, although it wasn't necessarily a good picture: he had close-cropped black hair, a short but full black beard and blue eyes. Incongrously, in the picture he wore full chain mail armor even though he actually wore full plate in the game; and he had a black-and-white tabard with his crest embroided on it (the tabard was slashed diagonally, the upper half was white with a sliver of black sun and the lower half was black with a white crescent moon). Rymon had his share of adventures, and he was a pretty intelligent fellow, who grew to resent the stereotype he was cast into by his adventuring companions ("you're our meat shield, you're not supposed to think"). He died heroically during a small RPG tournament, when he was slain by a 6-m. tall dwarf (a dwarf who apparently had found a ring of wishes and had wished to be taller)... Go to Comment

A certain culture has a curious pass-time- muscle art.
Muscle artists (who are called by a special name) work hard to sculpt their bodies, trying to become as muscular and buff as possible. The best among muscle artists look almost grotesque in their amazing muscularity, Atlas-like giants with shiny, oiled iron arms and legs.